


Something Close to Flying

by writingfromdarkplaces



Series: Never a Lady [1]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M, Gen, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 04:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7560925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingfromdarkplaces/pseuds/writingfromdarkplaces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not quite adjusted to her new life as the daughter of a successful musician, Kara escapes her home and gets lost on the estate of a nearby noble, crossing paths with an embittered war veteran... and his horse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Close to Flying

**Author's Note:**

> I went through old fics again, reread a couple of my epics (okay, the only two BSG epics I've got) and then looked at the incomplete stuff I'd started and found this, one of my many AU pieces I created or at least toyed with, since AU was about the only way to have Lee/Kara. It wasn't much of anything, not hardly a start, and when I thought about trying to clean it up and give it some kind of resolution, it was a bit daunting because I used to be the sort that did... novels. I'm not that person anymore, I'm fortunate to manage a one-shot of any kind, but I did finally find a place where this could have an end of sorts, so I gave it to it and thought I'd try posting it, since it may actually be more well-rounded than my last few attempts at anything.

* * *

Gods, she was frakking lost.

She was also late, wet, and her skirt was completely frakked. She'd just wanted to get out of the house, out of the damned role that she was being forced into. Kara Thrace was not anyone's definition of a lady, and she never would be. She had been raised in a frakking brothel. Her father should never have found her, never brought her back to his stupid, aristocratic world. This wasn't her place. 

Not that standing out in the frakking rain was much better, but at least this she understood. Almost. She was an inner streets peasant, not a country one. Gods, she should have stayed in the sewing circle, even if she hated those snobby so-called ladies, her sisters included.

“Frak,” she said, as she came upon the same tree again. She'd thought following this path would get her back to the house, but she was wrong. She didn't know where she was.

She headed in the opposite direction, determined to make it back to the house. She heard the sounds of a horse thundering past, not right next to her, but close by. She pushed through the bushes and caught sight of a large black stallion galloping across the field. The horse cleared fallen logs easily, one leap after another, and then his rider stopped him and turned him around to do it all again.

Kara drew as close as she dared, waiting for them to get close again. She had no one else to ask for directions, after all. She wanted to see the horse up close. That was one beautiful animal, and she was entranced. She watched him for a moment, her breath caught in her throat as the stallion faltered on the last jump.

The rider slowed the horse, jumping off to run his hands over the horse, speaking to it soothingly. He leaned around the horse and glared at her. “You startled him.”

“I'm sorry,” she said, and then she got angry. He she was, alone in the woods, lost and cold, her dress totally frakking ripped, and he blamed _her?_ He cared more about his frakking horse, and she was a person. 

“Oh, gods,” he said, pulling off his jacket. “You're soaked. Here, take this.”

She shivered as she took the coat from him. He helped her put it on over her shoulders. She looked up at him. Gods, he was handsome. He had short dark hair, just starting to wave at the ends, deep blue eyes. She felt something flutter in her stomach. She couldn't remember when she had last eaten. She supposed that was why.

“Are you lost?” He asked, doing some shivering of his own as the rain started to soak through his shirt. “Gods, where did you even come from?”

“Uh...” She grimaced, trying to remember the ridiculous name they'd given her father's house. Some sort of pretentious crap, the kind her mother would have snorted at but sounded like the dreams she used to have about her father coming like some kind of hero and rescuing her from everything. She should never have been that kind of fool. At least with her mother, she knew she was worthless and if she was lucky, someone would pay her a bit for things she didn't want to give. Her father... She had no frakking clue what he wanted from her. “A... manor. Somewhere.”

He frowned. “That's not very specific. Or helpful.”

She shrugged. She was about to make some kind of joke about it when her stomach twisted up again, and she grabbed hold of him, needing something to keep her on her feet. She tried to look at him. “Sorry.”

He just stared at her, eyes too intense for the way she was feeling right now. “The nearest manor is over seven miles from here. Not sure sorry is the word you're looking for.”

“So I got lost,” she mumbled. “That's not a crime, is it?”

“Trespassing is.”

“Oh,” she whispered, trying to remember what her father had said and what that meant, where she was. He'd listed off a bunch of neighbors, ones he thought sounded important, but she'd just been bored the entire time and forgot to listen like she should. Still, maybe it was in there somewhere. She just had to pull it back to her, which was the problem. She couldn't think, feeling sick like she did. “Guess I'm in trouble again.”

“Again?”

She would have grinned and given him some sort of smart remark that didn't become a lady, but the world shifted under her and not even holding him was enough to keep her upright any longer. The rain was the last thing she heard as she closed her eyes and fell.

* * *

“Frak.”

Lee'd caught the girl in time, keeping her from falling onto the nearest rock and splitting her skull, but doing so made him lose hold of the reins. As soon as he did, the horse was off like lighting had struck next to him, disappearing up the hill and out of sight. He shifted his grip on the girl and glared off into the distance.

Great. He had her dead weight in his arms, his first freedom in nearly four months was over, and his horse was gone. Knowing that creature, he wouldn't be back any time soon, which would lead to another threat from his father to sell it or maybe even disinherit Lee. Their stablemaster wouldn't be happy, either, but then Tyrol rarely was with Lee.

He shifted his companion in his arms, wondering how someone that short could be so heavy, but then he shouldn't be lifting anything and he knew it. His shoulder already ached, and dragging her back up to the house with him was not his best idea ever—he'd had ones that nearly killed him in the war that were better—but he wasn't leaving her out here. He didn't know who she was or where she belonged, and given that she'd seemed confused about where she was and then passed out, he didn't want her out here alone, even if it wasn't raining and his body wasn't fighting him every frakking step of the way.

He stopped, adjusting her for the third time since he'd started up the hill. Lords, this would be easy if he hadn't gotten himself shot to hell in that last battle. As it was, he should never have been out riding, and he couldn't keep hold of her for more than a few steps without having to stop. This wasn't going to work.

She groaned, and he looked down at her, knowing he wasn't lucky enough to have her wake up completely. No, she wouldn't be walking on her own for any of it, and he didn't know if she should, since he wasn't sure what had caused her faint.

Grimacing, he gave the house another look and pushed himself forward.

* * *

“Are you frakking insane?”

“Language,” Lee said, not looking over at his brother. They'd tried to force him into his own bed since he got back, but he didn't feel like leaving until the girl woke. If she was from the manor, she'd walked miles on her own, but that did not mean that was why she was out. Her dress had been torn up and dirtied but not enough to conceal what the rain revealed. He didn't know what had led her to that state, but until he was sure of what had caused her to cross his path, he wasn't leaving her. And if his suspicions about what he'd seen were true, then someone would pay. She was too young to know that kind of hurt, too innocent, even if their interactions suggested she wasn't quite what she appeared to be.

“Language? You want to lecture me on that when you almost killed yourself out there? Have you forgotten what you looked like when you got home?” Zak demanded. “Because I haven't. You were almost dead. And you look like it again.”

Lee grunted. “I'm tired.”

“You had no business going outside in the first place, and if you think—”

“Enough,” Lee snapped, tired of being told what to do. He didn't care if he'd been sent back to his family with the sole expectation that they'd be able to bury him by the time he got home. He wasn't dead, and he didn't want to be treated like something... broken. His mother and brother acted as though he were glass. His father...

His father seemed to think he was stone. Or something. He didn't know. He never understood where the truth was with that man, and he didn't know that he ever would.

“Fine, but I'm not going to pretend I'm happy about any of this.”

“You never do,” Lee said. Zak had that freedom. He was the second son, not the heir. Not the example, not the one who had to be perfect, the one who had to “distinguish” himself in the military and prove he was worth the accident of his birth.

Zak leaned over the bed. “She _is_ pretty.”

“Don't get any ideas.”

“Ideas? Why would I have ideas?” Zak grinned, and Lee rolled his eyes, too tired to do anything else about his brother's antics. “Nothing wrong with admiring a beautiful woman.”

“You do more than admire a lot of them, and may I remind you that you're the _second_ son?” Lee said, getting a look from his brother. “You're expected to marry your fortune because you don't have one of your own.”

“So now you're being an elitist, the way you always claim to hate.”

“No, I am reminding you that as much as you enjoy giving attention to every pretty girl you see, you do have... certain obligations that you will eventually have to face. You say I'm elitist, but I'm not. I'm a realist. There's no point involving yourself with someone who can never be anything meaningful to you,” Lee said. He'd seen too many nobles or officers taking advantage of servants or anyone they considered inferior, and he was sick of it. “Don't start. She's not even awake to fight you off.”

“She wouldn't fight me off,” Zak said. “Unlike you, people actually _like_ me. You're the one who'll be stuck marrying a woman who only wants you for money because no one else could stand you.”

Lee bit his lip, nodding. Trust Zak to use that one. It wasn't a new accusation or even one Lee could deny. He knew his fate, unless he chose to go against his father by refusing to marry at all, which would be a long, cold revenge, but he didn't know that he wouldn't. Let the old man die without a proper heir from his oldest son. Lee didn't feel like giving him the satisfaction.

He pushed himself up and went to the bed. “Go, Zak. She needs rest, and you're going to end up waking her.”

Zak nodded. “I'll go. Not like we've got anything left to say to each other, do we?”

Lee didn't correct him, though he could have. His relationship with his brother had been strained ever since he went to war and his father held Zak back here. Lee figured he was ensuring the line of succession, holding onto one of his sons. He didn't know. He just knew he wasn't the same, and Zak wasn't, either.

He let his brother leave the room without another word.

His body started to protest again, and he sat down at the foot of the bed, letting out a low curse. He still had a horse to find, and he should leave himself, but he couldn't make himself move.

* * *

Kara heard voices and tensed, not sure where she was or what was happening. She hadn't slept on a bed this soft before her father's house, but this seemed finer, and she wasn't sure why she was hearing men arguing when that was a sound that belonged to her mother's home, the brothel. Her father didn't have that many men around, so mostly it was the noise of her annoying half-sisters that woke her and drove her insane.

She waited, the silence in between the two men stretching on until she was relieved to hear the one tell the other to go.

Then she had a new reason to tense up as one sat down on the bed. She winced. The only part about being at her father's was the belief she had that she wasn't going to be just like her mother, just what someone would pay for her. She wasn't a lady, but she also wasn't a whore.

She shifted, needing to see what he was doing, but he wasn't even looking at her. She recognized him even with him facing away from her and without the rain. She didn't know that she would ever forget what he looked like, on the horse or off of it. She'd never seen a rider like him—she didn't see many riders before leaving her mother's place—but then there was something else. She could see danger in him, but not the kind she'd seen in so many men her mother knew.

“Where am I?”

He jerked, looking over at her with a frown. “How long have you been awake?”

She didn't want to answer that. “If you don't want to tell me where I am, maybe you want to tell me what you're doing on my bed?”

He seemed torn on how to react to that, a part of him trying to smile and the rest not. “It's not your bed, not exactly, and I'm only resting for a moment.”

“The last thing I remember is the rain.”

“I'm not surprised. You collapsed, and it wasn't easy getting you here.”

“And we're back to... where is here?”

“Hell,” he said, laughing darkly. He shook his head, running his fingers through his hair. “Sometimes I forget no one knows how this place gets into you, under the skin, like a corruption or something... One I seem to be the only one that notices, but I can see it there, the way it changes people. The stupid thing is that it's just a ruin, showing its age and falling apart, but everyone seems to think it's something else, something... well, they'd probably call it magical.”

“Galactica?” Kara asked, trying to decide if she believed that she was actually in that place, that huge palace at the top of the hill, the end of the world. She'd never thought that was even possible. “This is Galactica?”

“No.”

“But you said a ruin at the top of the hill and—”

“Galactica is—was—my father's ship in the navy. He was... That ship was his life. This place isn't anything in comparison to it. He even named it after the frakking ship, but that didn't make him care about it or call it home. He was never here unless he—” Her host stopped, taking in two deep breaths before he had himself back under control. She wasn't even sure he knew he'd stood up again until he broke off his tirade. “This isn't Galactica.”

She nodded, amused by his reaction to that. “Am I a prisoner?”

“What?” He stared at her, and she couldn't stop herself from laughing when he did.

“Oh, lords, your face,” she said, wrapping her arms around her stomach as she did. “You said trespassing was a crime, so...”

He shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

“Kara,” she said, and when he frowned at her again, she decided she liked that look. “My name. It's Kara. I figure you should know it since you're in my bedroom and all.”

“Gods,” he said, frustrated. “I'm starting to think I should have left you out there in the rain.”

She smirked. “Where's the fun in that?”

“This isn't about fun,” he said, and those eyes caught her, taking away any amusement she might have had. “It wasn't just a long walk in the rain, was it? Someone hurt you before you went on that walk of yours, didn't they?”

“I forgot to eat. It wasn't anything.”

“You didn't get those bruises from forgetting to eat. Or the scars.”

She glared at him. “Frak you. There's no way you know about that. There's no doctor here, and I'm still wearing the dress that you made me tear when you spooked me and—”

“And it's white. The rain soaked through it. I saw plenty before I gave you my coat, even if it wasn't my intention,” he told her. “Who the hell hurt you so much you thought running was a good idea?”

“It's not what you think,” she said. The bruises were old. Fading, even. No one had touched her since she got to her father's house. She was supposed to be safe there, better off. She just didn't know that safe came at the cost of being someone she wasn't and couldn't pretend to be. “I just... I left to get away from my sisters being stupid. The rest of it isn't—”

“Sisters? You're... You're Trace's daughter? The one he had with his first wife that ran off on him with some marine?”

“Sounds about right. Minus the part where my mother wasn't dead the entire time and a few other things,” Kara said, _like how my father might not even be Thrace, but he insisted he was as soon as he found my mother again and took me away from there but not before she made me pay for it._ “It's not like that matters to you. That any of it does.”

He lifted a brow, amused. “And you clearly have no idea how the world works around here, or you would never have said that.”

She glared at him. “I'm not stupid. There's all these rules and they say certain people are better than others because they've got a title and money, and it's not all that different from where the people who paid for it got exactly what they wanted.”

He cringed. “It isn't. Still, you do owe me a horse.”

She stared at him. “Excuse me?”

“You spooked him, and he ran off when you collapsed, therefore you owe me a horse,” he informed her, and she didn't know if she should laugh or try and hurt him.

She eyed him again. He was the kind of man the working ladies she'd known would have done for free—at least in looks. “You still haven't said who you are.”

“It doesn't matter.”

“Why the frak not?”

He seemed amused by the question. “Because if what you say about your home is true and you're safe there, then you and I will never speak again. We'll return to the way the world works and the differences in our respective classes will do the rest.”

She frowned. She wasn't sure about this man—a part of her liked him and another part of him wanted to hit him—but she didn't know why he thought that she would suddenly stop talking to him just because she was her father's daughter.

“My lord?” A servant called from the doorway. “The doctor is here to see to your guest, and your father wants to see you. Immediately, sir.”

He nodded stiffly, leaving the room without a word to her or the man who'd called him away. She leaned back against her pillow, thinking. Had he actually—he'd said this was his father's house. The place called Galactica. And that man had called him 'my lord,' which meant—

Frak.

That was Lord Adama's son. The older one, had to be, the heir.

* * *

With his angry words to his father still ringing in his head, Lee stepped out into the darkness that had fallen over the grounds with nightfall. He knew more lectures would come if they knew where he was and what he was doing—not just from his father, but from Zak and his mother as well—the only thing this family agreed on was their disapproval of everything he did these days.

Lee started across the gardens, needing to move past the arranged hedges and rows to where nature went untamed, far from the work of groundskeepers and gardeners, away from anything that continued that nagging sense that all of this—the whole frakking estate—was a prison.

He left the garden behind him, needing distance from the house and everyone in it.

Well, not everyone. For some reason, he found himself thinking of the girl again. Kara. She'd been something of a puzzle to him since he met her, from the way she had appeared from nowhere to her injuries and her attitude. He couldn't say that he was entirely surprised to know that she had one or that she used fouler language than some of his fellow officers, but then he had heard the rumors about her mother and the kind of woman she was. He didn't know if there was much truth to them, but he knew that the others didn't need the truth. The rumors would be enough to get her shunned and ruin her chances to marry like any other girl hoped to, though he doubted that was what she expected or wanted.

He stopped in the middle of the field, turning toward the moon that seemed to be rising over the field. He'd thought he sensed something, like that feeling he got just before an attack, but instead, he found himself staring at some kind of dream. An illusion.

What else explained the image of a woman on a horse silhouetted against the moon?

“You are insane,” Lee said, looking at her. “No, _beyond_ insane. You shouldn't even be out of bed, and that horse doesn't—Viper hates everyone, even sometimes me. He tries to bite Tyrol daily, but you're up and riding him. You are—”

“Insane, I know,” Kara said, smiling at him. “Still, it wasn't like I was going to let you hold that kind of a debt over my head, and I sure as hell wasn't staying in that bed any longer.”

“Again, insane. You barely survived your trip to the house. You're not going to make it back now, in the dark, even if you somehow tricked my horse into letting you ride him.”

She reached down to pat the horse's neck. “He's amazing. I don't know why you'd ever stop riding him. It's like... like flying.”

He nodded. “It is. And I would. It's a freedom unlike anything else in the world.”

She slipped off the horse. “I don't know why I'm doing this.”

“Doing what?”

She held out the reins to him. “I can't believe I'm giving him back to you.”

“I thought you said that you didn't want to have that kind of a debt to me,” he began, and she nodded as she moved closer to him. He frowned. That wasn't an unfamiliar walk—it was pure seduction, and he tensed, trying to decide what she was doing.

“I don't,” she said, “but it would be worth it to be able to fly.”

“Your father could buy you a horse.”

“Not like this one.”

“So what are you thinking? You plan on getting back on him and riding off into the night? Because that's not going to happen,” Lee told her. He might find her interesting, but that didn't mean he was giving up his horse—his freedom—to her. Viper wasn't like any other horse he'd ever had, and he couldn't ignore that.

“I think we might be able to come to some kind of arrangement.”

“You're not going to offer to become my mistress for a horse, are you?”

She just laughed.


End file.
